Search

By juxtaposing two ostensibly divergent characters, the Jewish art historian and Egyptologist Hedwig Fechheimer (1871–1942) and Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), this paper investigates how both approaches folded time, creating Cubist chronologies. Fechheimer adapted the philological focus of her Berlin School contemporaries to create an ahistorical, anti-teleological grammar of ancient Egyptian art which espoused an artistic affinity between the Egyptians and the Cubist movement. Eisenstein, who held a copy of one of Fechheimer’s books in his personal library, took a similar approach in the development of his critiques of historical allegory. This paper looks specifically at two shots of a sphinx during the bridge sequence in the 1927 film October to demonstrate how they correspond to Fechheimer’s views on Egyptian art and also function peculiarly within the film. Ultimately, I aim to demonstrate how the interpellations of the sphinx demonstrate a particular critique of historicity that Eisenstein later expands upon in his Ivan the Terrible films.

Despite the broad popularity of Britain's imperial project in the 1920s (among Britons), fears of native fecundity coupled with burgeoning support for the “science” of eugenics fomented a cultural discourse keen to bolster British claims to inherent superiority, and thus, to a legitimacy of their colonial aims. Egypt was a prime literary setting for teasing at various aspects of the concept of the colony: the early heights to which their civilization grew, the wave of Egyptmania sweeping Europe in the nneteenth and twentieth centuries, the contemporaneous political situation, and the local birthrate all contributed to Egypt as an apt setting from which to critique colonialism. Meanwhile, Egypt's enigmatic aura meant it lent itself well to the genre of the supernatural, prone to probing at the horrors of the colonizing project. Within this framework, Margery Lawrence's 1925/6 short story “The Curse of the Stillborn” offers a unique perspective on eugenic discourse and the imperial project. While maintaining certain elements of a eugenic discourse “The Curse of the Stillborn” warns of the scars awaiting those who would dare interfere in the instinctive, ancient burial rites of the colonized subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By juxtaposing two ostensibly divergent characters, the Jewish art historian and Egyptologist Hedwig Fechheimer (1871–1942) and Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), this paper investigates how both approaches folded time, creating Cubist chronologies. Fechheimer adapted the philological focus of her Berlin School contemporaries to create an ahistorical, anti-teleological grammar of ancient Egyptian art which espoused an artistic affinity between the Egyptians and the Cubist movement. Eisenstein, who held a copy of one of Fechheimer's books in his personal library, took a similar approach in the development of his critiques of historical allegory. This paper looks specifically at two shots of a sphinx during the bridge sequence in the 1927 film October to demonstrate how they correspond to Fechheimer's views on Egyptian art and also function peculiarly within the film. Ultimately, I aim to demonstrate how the interpellations of the sphinx demonstrate a particular critique of historicity that Eisenstein later expands upon in his Ivan the Terrible films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]